"Lubricious Nature" began to whisper, which awoke his old companion, "Amatory Fever," who began to gibber, leer, and cajole…
Damme, I'm tryin' t' 'spy here! Lewrie pointed out to his groin.
It was a forlorn hope, though, any continued "spying." On both sides of him, it was all elbows and shoulders, troops of foreigners in full cry in alien tongues, and the local French patois was so nasally "hawn-hawn" and rapid he could barely make out one word in four, those mostly harmless and plebeian. He was being jostled at the bar, just a whisker short of intentional insult for an English gentleman, who held a larger personal space than most. Even the music played by a string trio from the old-style gallery irritated him, a jiggery-pokery of gay but jangly airs… when not some mournful dirges, half-Spanish, half-Moorishly minor keyed.
He thought of crying off and heading home to bed, but surely! His first night ashore in untold months, out of uniform and anonymous, in a port town as sinful as Old Port Royal on Jamaica. How dull it'd be to wash out his stockings and underdrawers alone, yet…
The press at the counter got to him. He scooped up his change, wafer-thin foreign "tin," felt to see if he still had his coin-purse, then began to wander the main room.
"Mon Dieu, Jean!" Hippolyte whispered maliciously. "Where did he get such a tawdry ensemble? That fellow there in the wide hat?"
"Why is he walking so oddly… all hunched over?" Helio asked.
"An Americain clown," Jean-Marie Rancour dismissed. "Back to what we are discussing… We know M'sieur Bistineau cheats us. Why does he get five percent off the top, when I've heard that criminals who deal in stolen goods pay the thieves first to get them. Lanxade said it's his normal cost of doing business," Jean insisted in a hot mutter, both elbows on the table round a wineglass, "And how do we know we can trust Henri Maurepas, either, if he misreports on-"
"Papa trusts him implicitly, Jean," Helio declared. "Not once has he ever doubted him. He manages all our affairs. Papa knows…"
"Papa knows how to spend, cher brother," Charite impatiently countered. "He has no real head for the intricacies of business. It is beneath true gentlemen. Of course, M'sieur Bistineau is cheating us, and there is little we, or old Henri Maurepas, can do about it… so long as Bistineau is the only trader who'll accept our goods, dare to have them in his store. Later on, well…"
"Later on, perhaps we'll confront Monsieur Bistineau with steel," Helio, as the eldest, announced. "His son Claude will inherit. Isn't Claude one of us, the one who presented the scheme to his father, out of patriotism? Perhaps we should talk to Claude…"
"He is the only outlet," Hippolyte grumbled, turning his glass round and round. "If not the Bistineaus, I can't think of another of French blood who'd be bold enough. All the rest who could handle our goods are Americans these days, anyway," he glumly stated.
"Mori Dieu, business, business, business!" Charite exasperatedly complained. "We are here to celebrate, n'est-ce pas? Our cause gains cash, it advances… We have hurt and frightened our Spanish masters. And… we have money to spend… like sailors." She twinkled to buck them up. "Like buccaneers of the grand old days. A votre same!" she gaily proposed, raising her champagne glass.
Charite de Guilleri had enjoyed the freedom of movement that a buccaneering costume had given her on their first raiding cruise, and even before that she'd found it extremely droll to go out at night in the company of her brothers, or other sporting young males of her set, disguised as a man who could witness the games, pleasures, and amusing places that men could enjoy, whilst "proper" young ladies were forced to sit at home… to hear the curses and uproariously funny and lewd stories and jests that a staid husband would never bring home to a genteelly sheltered wife after a night out with his contemporaries.
Tonight, Charite wore a silk shirt with a stylish broad cravat, a snugly
tailored waist-coat over that, and a man's wide-lapeled, nip-waisted coat, unbuttoned and loose enough to disguise her breasts. A pair of fawn-coloured trousers, snug as a second skin, and riding boots, covered her legs. Her long chestnut hair was pinned up high and concealed beneath a tapered-crown tall hat that was forced to ride far back on her forehead, as if cocked in a saucy, devil-may-care manner. And, like her brothers, or any New Orleans "gentleman," Charite bore a small pocket pistol in her coat, a pencil-thin dagger in a hidden sheath up her left sleeve, and a gilt-handled sword-cane behind her chair.
To help her disguise along, she had fashioned a narrow mustachio from gauze and her own hair clippings, attached to her upper lip by paste. Admittedly, it required a lot of fiddling to assure her that it wasn't coming loose, and it didn't take well to wine or brandy, but the surprise she elicited with it had been amusing.
Should Papa or Maman, any of her respectable family, ever learn that she went out without a female chaperone or body slave… that she went out after dark, and to such low dives as the Pigeon Coop, dressed as a man especially, well! Charite would end up on one of their isolated, dreary swamp plantations, and it could be a year or longer etre dans la merde-"Up Shit's Creek"-before they relented!
Nor would it help for them to learn that Charite long ago had become "tarnished treasure"; that she had surrendered the particular commodity that fetched a high bride price. Charite wasn't sure which would shame her family more: to be caught in her disguise as a "false, de-sexed" carouser, to have squandered her precious virginity, or to be tried and executed by the Spaniards as a dangerous revolutionary pirate!
Each, though, all of it together, made Life so piquantly exciting. "Down with your tired old conventions and morals!" was, in her mind, as revolutionary a slogan as "Down with Tyrants and Aristos" in the Place de Bastille.
It was thrilling to be, to act, so Modern!
"Look!" Helio said of a sudden as the tawdrily garbed stranger wandered over to a nearby gaming table. "Your gaudy fellow, Hippolyte… See that scar on his cheek? Our slave Aristotle said the man who leads the bruisers off the Panton, Leslie ship, the one he heard them calling 'Capitaine,' has such a scar. He is fairer-haired than that Americain, that El… El-isson. I think it's the same man!"
"Why is he walking that way?" Charite wondered, snickering.
"Too-tight trousers," Helio sneered. "Cheap, ready-made."
"A stiff-leg sailor." Hippolyte tittered.
"Ah, but which leg, mes amis?" Cousin Jean-Marie giggled. "Is he a sailor, he's one en rut, hee hee!"
"Zut, Jean/" Helio chid him. "Our sister is present!"
"Your sister is not here, tonight, mes freres," Charite pointed out. "I am Armand, comprende?" She leaned back in her chair, one arm slung over its back in studiedly "male" fashion, appraising their potentially worrisome stranger over the rim of her champagne glass with her eyes half-lidded. "Mmmm… the scar makes him look… dashing. Very intriguing. Almost handsome," she cooed, half to herself. Then she abandoned her male pose to whirl and chirp girlishly at her tablemates. "We must talk to him, one of us! Get him to drink with us… tell him some jokes or something. Get him drunk and sound him out to see who, and what, he is… see if he is trouble."
"El-isson, or that Capitaine fellow?" Hippolyte quickly objected, blanching. "It's best if neither of them know us."
"We must beard him," Charite insisted. "In drink, he may blab or even wish to befriend us to help him with whatever it is he's come for. If Capitaine Lanxade is wrong, and he's seeking pirates… we could pretend to help discover them!
"Oui!" Charite exclaimed, to their appalled expressions. "We send him on a goose chase down the bayous, looking for truly desperate cut-throats. La Fourche, or Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, not Barataria, you see? And, if he's not a spy, we learn it. Come on, one of you! Have you no spirit? Must /do it?"
Oh la, how delicious! Charite thought suddenly.
Which would be sweeter: to sham the idle, elegant Creole gentilhomme and befuddle the man's wits, or reveal herself, beguile him with her novelty, her modernity! Perhaps even to seduce him, then get him to talk unguardedly, half-sodd
en and nigh spent? True Jacobin patriot girls, heroines of the glorious Revolution in France, had applied their wiles in such a fashion to ferret out Aristos and sympathisers. Could she do no less for their coming liberation?
She looked back over at him. No, it wouldn't be such a horrid chore, Charite decided, her lips parting in an expectant smile, with a frisson of pleasure-to-come swelling inside her. He is certainly not… unattractive!
Charite felt her nipples harden at the thought, felt them swell and pucker against the caressing silk of her shirt, the tautness of her waist-coat. That made her squirm a bit more on her chair, blaming the snugness of her trousers' crutch-fork for the restless, warm feeling that ghost-tickled up her innards, and clasp her knees together, clutch her buttock muscles as if…
"The Devil take you all," she said with a bold laugh, draining her champagne glass and tossing her head in frustration, in a mad-cap finality. "I'll be the one to beard him! Just you watch this, you… timid garconnets!"
With what appeared to others as a dashing stroke of her mustachios, but was really reassurance that that "appliance" was still firmly stuck on, Charite de Guilleri sprang to her feet and began stalking her prey.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
B onjour, m'sieur… you are new to Le Pigeonnier?"
Alan Lewrie had been trying to make sense of the dealing, discarding, and redealing of the "Poke Her" game, yet not get so close that the players might object, when that "sweet" voice stole his attention.
"Hey?" was his bright rejoinder.
"I ask if you are new, here, m'sieur. You are not a familiar face" came the reply, from a slim, short, over-elegant fop, who put him in mind of cheap dolls sold at fairs, a "Bartholomew Baby."
Lewrie beheld a saucy, possibly half drunk cock-a-whoop so pale-complexioned he couldn't have seen sunlight since his christening; so lean-faced and pert-chinned, so young he had no need to shave, yet, but with an oddly lush mustachio; three or four inches shorter than Lewrie, even with the help of riding-boot heels. The idle jack-a-napes lazily twiddled an empty champagne glass 'twixt the lean fingers of his right hand, with the other challengingly poised akimbo on his hip.
For a second, another whippet-thin fellow came to mind: Horatio Nelson, his old squadron commander. Lewrie's second recollection was sorrier: his Sodomite half brother, Gerald, or others of that "Molly's" idle and depraved " Windward Passage " crew.
"You buy me champagne, m 'sieur?" the wee fellow asked, his blue eyes twinkling, his cheeks as dimpled as a randy chambermaid's.
"Sorry, lad," Lewrie gruffly responded. "Not t'give offence but… I don't think we're in the same regiment."
"You are new to New Orleans, I take it?" the mininkin persisted, smiling even wider. "British… or American? Vous parlez pauvre Francais, peut-etre? The poor French, perhaps? Un peu, but a little? You will need the translator, and I am he, m'sieur! Vairy bon marche…pas cher," he gaily beguiled. "That is to say, 'inexpensive.' The 'cheap'?" he added with an amused titter.
"Nothing personal, young fellow, but… I don't need help with the language, and I won't buy you a drink, and you ain't my sort, so do toddle off, won't you?" Lewrie rejoined, beginning to get irked. "If you aren't a pimp … un entremetteur… I've no need of you, or your services, thankee. Comprendre 'no thanks'? Try someone else."
"Ah, yes! I can introduce you to a girl, m'sieur." The elfin imp brightened, attempting to step closer, which set Lewrie to backing up a matching step or two. "None of these drabs, non! You would be interested, m'sieur… your name escapes me, sorry? "
"Didn't set it loose," Lewrie huffed. " Willoughby. Now do-"
" Willoughby," the cheeky little bastard slowly struggled to say, nodding somberly for a moment as if the name was a talismanic spell to be forgotten at one's peril. " Very solid. Very Anglo-Saxon. You are new to New Orleans, and you wish a girl. You are un Americain, come down the Great River on a long, lonely, and pleasureless travail. Or you came upriver on a ship, a long, lonely, and pleasure-denying time, aussi, n 'est-ce pas? You have heard of the Creole ladies, and come to the Pigeonnier to seek one, but alas… they never come out to such a place. They sit lonely and sad in their rooms, m 'sieur Willoughby… you have a Christian name? They wait for you, bold traveller, I-"
"Oh, bugger this!" Lewrie growled, "and bugger you, too! Scat! Shoo! I don't like boys, comprendez?"
"But I am not a boy, m 'sieur!" the fellow whispered so alluringly and girlishly, long lashes batting, that Lewrie was stalled in his tracks, despite whatever revulsion for the "back-gammoners' brigade" he felt. Damme, is he or isn't he? he wondered; he … she … a specialty of the house? Oh, the Devil with it… him, she, it!
"Adieu, m'sieur… or whatever," Lewrie all but snarled back, exasperated enough to risk open insult and a knife fight. "Bonsoir. Hasta la vista… vaya con Dios… auf bloody wiedersehen, 'bye!"
"Such a pity," the wee chap said with a disconcertingly fetching pout, raising hands to hat and lip. "Adieu, and bonsoir to you as well, m'sieur Willoughby."
"Same t'you, as… Jesus!" Lewrie gawped in astonishment as the hat was lifted high enough to reveal a bounteous beehive of silky chestnut hair, as half a broadly grinning upper lip was mockingly "exfoliated." The… she/he/it/whatever dimpled prettily and laughed aloud, sticking out a taunting tongue as the hat was quickly clapped back on, and the false mustachio got restuck.
She-Lewrie wasn't exactly certain that she wasn't truly a girl at that moment!-sashayed away, swaying slim hips that swayed the female way, leaving him red-faced to be so twitted, the butt of a gargantuan joke! He shrugged and shook his head to cast off his puzzlement, then toddled back to the bar for a very needed refill of drink, leaving the publican an extra peseta or three this time. Once there, he tossed off the "heel-taps" of his last one, then craned his vision about the large cabaret to see if someone he knew had deliberately set him up for a wry jape and was now chortling in a dark corner, but no… not a single familiar face, form, or distinguising article of clothing could he spot, not a single guffaw, grin, or smile directed at him. Was she or wasn 't he, dammit!' he speculated, nursing his insulted feelings on smoky-sweet and mellow aged "corn squeezings." Was she bait t'get me somewhere dark, where some hostile bully-bucks could knife me all quiet-like? Or just rob me down t'me skin?
He leaned both elbows on the bar, hunched over his whisky like the Creole dandies, Catalan peasants, and few raw-boned Yankees did it.
Lewrie would have hauled out his pocket watch to find how late it was, would that act not perk up potential pickpockets, much like a red flag waved at a bull. The Pigeon Coop's clientele certainly seemed to boast more than its fair share of cutty-eyed sharpers!
One more glass, he gloomily determined, still stewing over his mocking, and he'd be off to his hired set of rooms, no matter how dour a prospect that was, call it an early night, and-
A sharpish clack! sounded from his left as a gilt-handled cane came down flat on the bar counter to claim space for its owner, and to summon the publican.
"I am so sorry, m'sieur Willoughby." The smooth-cheeked "fellow" chuckled as he insinuated himself-herself?-alongside him. "But it was very amuse… amusing?… to see your face when I accosted you. To see your etonnement… astonishment… over my little jest."
"And which bastard put you up to it?" Lewrie snapped.
"Why, no one, m'sieur" came the reply, with a soft, intimate laugh. "I do this to many people. To pretend to be a man is the only way a girl could enjoy a cabaret. They are such fun, but as you see, ladies are barred. Only the putains, the whores, come here, and I do not wish to be taken for one, n 'est-ce pas? I sincerely apologise for causing you any uh… embarrassment, m 'sieur Willoughby… and I do earnestly beg your forgive… forgiveness."
"Well, hmmm," Lewrie growled, turning to face… whatever, though he still had his doubts, dreading an even crueller twitting did he relent. Hmmm, though! he thought, looking down.
In the short time since their parting, the… whatever… had untied
the broad cravat and let it dangle like a short scarf, undone the upper buttons of that lace-ruffled silk shirt, and had freed the top buttons of the satin waistcoat, revealing, hinting at…
There were damn' few boys, in Lewrie's broad experience, could sport such a flawless decolletage; nor spring free such neatly bounteous breasts. Not even rolled-up stockings could sham those!
"If you buy me champagne, m'sieur Willoughby," she {definitely a she, Lewrie was now almost completely certain!) inveigled with her eyes and mouth lazily grinning, for knowing exactly where he had been gazing, "and I will teach you how to play Boure, a most amusing, and very Creole, card game. I am Charite… Charite Bonsecours, though I disguise myself as Armand," she told him, their gazes now directly bold and all but inseparable. She borrowed the surname of another proud and respectable Creole family of long standing on the spur of the moment. "For when I wish to go out and… play."
That sweet expression on her face, that tone of voice, and her play on words, those female long lashes being batted at him, and her angel-whore's coyness, all but made Lewrie go "Eep!" and snatch at his suddenly reawakened crutch.
"What else do you play?" he barely had the wit to ask, "Other than Boure… and jests on 'Johnny Newcomes'?"
"Oh, there are many other delightful games that I enjoy," she sultrily intimated, shifting from one foot to the other, which slyly shifted a hip to brush against his. "I promise you will not be disappointed, m 'sieur, ah… I must know your Christian name. If we are to be… intimates?" she cooed. " 'Tis Alan… Alan… Willoughby," he replied, coming nigh a cropper over his own masquerade, grinning it off with an appraising leer. "I'll allow you the champagne, and the cards. For now. Just so long as you don't play me, again… Charite." In a gruffer, warning tone he added, "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, then look to your life."
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